'World's oldest man' dies in Japan

TOKYO • The "world's oldest man" Masazo Nonaka, who was born just two years after the Wright brothers launched humanity's first powered flight, died yesterday aged 113, Japanese media said.

Mr Nonaka was born in July 1905, according to Guinness World Records - just months before Albert Einstein published his special theory of relativity. Guinness officially recognised Mr Nonaka as the oldest living man last year.

Japan has one of the world's highest life expectancies and was home to several people recognised as among the oldest humans to have ever lived.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

India sacks bankers in huge fraud case

NEW DELHI • India has sacked two executives of state-run Punjab National Bank for allegedly failing to prevent a US$2 billion (S$2.7 billion) fraud, two sources said yesterday, nearly a year after the country's biggest bank scam came to light.

This is the first instance of sacking of the bank's employees since it said that billionaire diamond jeweller Nirav Modi and his uncle had for years fraudulently raised billions of dollars in foreign credit by conspiring with staff at the bank.

REUTERS

Russians rally over islands' ownership

MOSCOW • A crowd gathered in Moscow yesterday to defend Russia's ownership of a chain of islands captured by Soviet troops from Japan during the final days of World War II.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, due to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow tomorrow, is pushing for a treaty for the isles, known as the Southern Kuriles in Russia and the Northern Territories in Japan. Russia has said its sovereignty over them was not up for discussion.

REUTERS